And I thought I was part of the Net Generation! Ha!

The language the students use is often times the language that I use. I familiar with the most computer terminology. I consider myself part of the Net Generation. I am no stranger to the various forms of media used by Net Geners today,but I'm sure there are plenty of things that I do not know about. I find it hard to believe that at this point in time, there are still professors who refuse to use email. I must admit that it has been a long time since I've set foot in a library for a research project and that most of my information can be found on Google or Wikipedia.

However, I might have to agree with the attitudes of the Generation X when it comes to getting to the point. I don't appreciate classes where the majority of the time is spent getting off topic while students repeat the same points they've already made just in different words. I am here to learn, and granted there is a certain value in a class discussion, but when it takes away from the main topics we are supposed to be discussing I start to loose focus.

We can't always teach students the way they want to be taught. Just because they learn by giving them all fun and games doesn't mean it should be the only way to teach them. Students need to know that when they are done with school, the business world will not accommodate to their learning process and will more than likely require you to read the texts and that the power point presentations will be boring in a business setting. Students still need structure and discipline in order to make it in the business world. I'm not saying that using technology in fun and interesting ways is a bad, we just have to consider its implications in settings outside of school and how a generation can progress without valuable reading and comprehension skills.

As I read the Diigo articles, I am thinking about all the tools and terminology of web 2.0. I was reminded that I had no idea what web 2.0 even meant. I have to constantly tell myself that this information is important to my success as a teacher. I feel very close minded and have to change my way of thinking. But it is not easy. All of these things the students have learned slowly over a long period of time, and now I am forced (through my own drive for success) to learn these things within the next year and a half, or possibly less. Perhaps it is that I am not really a total part of the Net-Gen but only partially.

I am skeptical of strictly online schools at the K-12 level. Is this a product of my only partial involvement with the Net Gen? I am so stubborn that I just can't believe that learning everything online could have a positive effect on children? I see that online schooling can cut back on the budget for education, but does the budget outweigh the students final educational outcome? Will the students wake up one day and realize that they have been missing out on so much by learning at home/ These are questions I can not answer and leave it up to researchers and parents who are willing to take that risk.

I must admit that I have not heard of a lot of the R/W technology. Although I have heard of Flickr, I had never used it and was unaware of its photo annotation. I do not know what an aggregator is. I have never used nor heard of Google Docs so I went to the site. It seems pretty useful to me. It is all the word processing documents found in one place where you can share it all without the hassle of downloading the file to the internet and copy and pasting text.

I leave you today with a quote from Chapter 5 of Educause and a video I found on School 2.0.

"Lessons last longer if we understand the relative steps to reach them."

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=7191679&page=1